“My water just broke.” Her smile grows, and my heart flips.
Everything is chaos for the next hour while I grab everything needed to get to the hospital. You’d think we’d be prepared by now, but nope. Of course not.
Harrison and Tabitha show up in just enough time to stay with the girls. I race Seraphine to the hospital, and it takes less than three hours for our baby to come into the world.
“Congratulations, Daddy, you have another girl,” the doctor says, handing me off the tiniest bundle. No matter how many times I’ve done this, I can still never believe that my babies are so small, so fragile. But she’s by far the smallest one yet.
I sit on the edge of the bed beside Seraphine, so we can share this moment together. Soon enough, the girls will be here, and it’ll be chaos all over again. Not that I’m complaining, because I love it. It keeps me young for sure.
“You did it again, sweetness. She’s perfect.”
Her hand rests on my forearm. “We made her together.”
“Yeah, we did,” I say, looking down at my beautiful sleeping girl. She has a head full of dark hair, just like her sisters did.
“What do you want to name her?” Seraphine asks.
“I like Addison,” I say. “It’s cute. Sweet.”
We’ve been going back and forth over names for the last couple of months. Girl names and boy names since we didn’t know what we were having. We waited with each one of them, not knowing until they came out.
“Addison is perfect,” Seraphine says.
“Just like you.” She smiles, then rests back, closing her eyes. I kiss her forehead and whisper, “I love you.”
Life is good, life is perfect. It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted. It’s all that I need.
Seraphine
One yearlater…
“Can you believe it?” Elliot says softly, putting his arms around my waist. I stare into Amelia’s room, watching her sleep.
“No, I can’t,” I say honestly.
“First day of school tomorrow.”
I shake my head, feeling tears in my eyes. My girls are my life. They’re so special to me, which I guess is how most mom’s feel. Sometimes I think I’m doing an awful job, but I try my hardest to make them happy and teach them to be good people. I’m grateful for Elliot and couldn’t imagine my life without him.
“Soon enough, Addison will be going off to her first day…”
“Don’t worry, we’ll have more so it’ll keep happening.”
I huff out a laugh, turning in his arms. “Don’t be crazy.”
“We said we wanted a big family.”
“Three daughters and a stepson is enough for me…” I say, trying to keep a straight face. It’s a running joke in our family now. Harrison is technically my stepson. It’s weird when I think about it, so I just choose not to. This is our family, it’s a little strange, but we make it work.
“Nope. I think we need more,” Elliot says, kissing my neck.
“You’re not the one who has to push them out, so you would say that.”
“But I do have to deal with the mood swings and middle of the night cravings.”
I laugh, recalling how when I was pregnant with Addison I would wake up in the middle of the night craving the most random things and cry if I didn’t get them.
“You poor thing,” I say, lifting up to kiss him.
